Here in Exmoor farming, like so many other farmers across the globe, we look at the animals in front of us. Assessing the quality of our animals is fundamental to good breeding.
When DNA parentage verification was brought in as a pedigree registration requirement for Exmoor ponies in the early 2000’s, the breed society failed to establish definitive baseline databases for moorland herds. It failed to even DNA parentage verify the foals born ‘off the moor’. This created a double standard for pedigree registration within the breed, and a massive problem for moorland farmers trying to manage large free-living herds out in the wilder moorland enclosures of Exmoor National Park.
Today, some of those farmers, herd and land owners are still struggling with an incomplete DNA database containing anomalies, creating long passport delays at times and worse even - inconclusive results. In extreme cases, where relations with the breed society have broken down, this has caused herds to be culled, put on breeding rest or owners to 'give up'. This has caused countless perfectly good Endangered Breed foals to be routed to exclusion and even slaughter - through lack of papers, status and value. At times, with encouragement from the breed society not to present foals for inspection and telling their breeders ‘there is no market for them’. When there would be - and is.
An absolute travesty.
But astute farmers continue to look at the Exmoor ponies in front of them. Where they deem those ponies to be of good quality and ‘true to type’ Exmoor ponies, they are reluctant to ‘get rid of them’ and they continue to safeguard them. Exmoor ponies are an endangered breed and farmers like to breed good, robust, well-moving, healthy livestock - to hand on to future generations. Other herd owners have slaughtered perfectly good mares to 'fit the paperwork' irrespective of loss of quality and endangered breed genetics.
An absolute travesty.
The Moorland Exmoor Pony Breeders Group is dedicated to safeguarding its beautiful pedigree Exmoor ponies - and also looking for ways to properly recognise, give status to and embrace, the unfortunate pool of purebred Exmoor ponies that are languishing out of a closed stud book. On Exmoor, in the UK and overseas.
A look at some of the more poorly marked, narrow chested, straight shouldered, long-eared, awkwardly moving Exmoor ponies -various with emerging congenital defects and with one of the highest native pony inbreeding coefficients - tells us that we should be maximising diversity within Exmoor ponies, not narrowing it further. A herd of perfectly good, healthy, well-moving, well-marked, robust, resilient, intelligent Exmoor ponies is a genetic gift to the Exmoor breed - and we should not waste the opportunity to make the most of those genetics - for the good of the breed.
Here is a good example of what I’m talking about - a cracking Exmoor pony from Molland Moor. His father is the adjacent pedigree licensed Exmoor stallion, Knightoncombe Royal (waiting for DNA verification). His dam is from a long line of Exmoor mares messed about through not establishing definitive, correct DNA profiles of this herd when the system was brought in. They are the ‘fall out’ of human incompetence. It is not their fault. It doesn’t make them ‘not Exmoor ponies’. While this pony, as a male, is unlikely to breed, the mares of this quality should not lose the opportunity to pass on their quality, attributes, desired characteristics, and learned and genetic behaviours, for the good of the Exmoor breed.
It’s an interesting fact that years back, Exmoor pedigree passports were happily handed out for ponies with ‘no name’ splattered across their lineage and where no DNA testing was carried out, where multi-stallions and colts ran in multi-herds and boundaries were breached. And various guesswork occurred as to who was sired by who, etc.
You can’t suddenly bring in an incomplete, error-ridden DNA verification system and start excluding perfectly good Exmoor ponies from being registered as ‘Exmoor ponies’.
But they did.
It is not reasonable to run a ‘Closed’ Stud Book with this level of human error and incomplete data - and with this obvious pool of good Exmoor stock outside of pedigree registration.
But they do.
Can someone please show this to the two ‘ladies’ who expressed the view at this year’s EPS AGM that Holtball Herd 11 (comprising supreme champion pedigree breeding stock) should not be allowed to advertise in the EPS Year Book (I paid about £100 for this advert) - their spurious reason being that I ‘promote non-pedigree Exmoor ponies’.
Perhaps someone can try to help them absorb and understand what I’m saying here?
I’m talking about recognising and embracing
Good Purebred Exmoor Ponies
that are obstructed from the Closed Stud Book, often due to human error, rather than due to the fact they are not ‘Exmoor ponies’.
I…am…not…talking…about…cross…breds.
(I couldn’t answer the shouts of these two ‘ladies’ at the EPS AGM, because they are part of the cabal that used corrupt processes to terminate the memberships of myself and my Exmoor moorland farmer husband from the breed society in 2014).
A recent email of mine to the EPS, saying that I didn’t object to these ‘ladies’ expressing their opinions, but I do object to being obstructed from a right to reply, was met with a speedy email from the EPS Chairman, telling me the trustees had ‘voted’ (equally speedily and through what procedure I cannot fathom) that they will not let us rejoin the breed society, or discuss...anything.
Is it the role of a breed society trustee to refuse to discuss anything with concerned Exmoor pony breeders and block them from their own breed society? I think not.
Unlike these breed society representatives, I am perfectly willing and able to politely discuss all of this with them, at any time - for the good of the breed and to look for satisfactory solutions. What are they so afraid of?
We can do better for Exmoor ponies than this current situation. And we will.
